A special kind of magic happened at the Edgy Boum on Saturday night! It was an blend that only the Edgy Women Festival could deliver: imaginative performances, intriguing installations, interactive initiatives, right on dj-ing and an incredible crowd of awesome women. I can’t say for sure, but I’m guessing that pretty much everybody got laid too. (ahem)

The evening really got started, oddly enough, in the line up for tickets. The crowd was electric! Buzzing with energy and anticipation for the Edgy Boum that was about to begin. In line was a who’s-who of queer artists, dancers, media moguls, personalities and cool crowdsters. It was exciting to see so many members of our community come out to see the Boum and support the Edgy Women Festival.

“What brought you to the Edgy Women tonight?”, I asked a friend in line with her date. “I’ve been before,” Meghan, a modern dancer and student of physiotherapy, replied, “and I’ve been waiting for Edgy all year! Checking out the newspaper for when it came up. I’m so excited!”

Interactive Performances

In the lobby, was a woman wearing a blue hospital gown covered in employee pink slips, attached with collectible pins. Caroline Boiteau, a multi-disciplinary artist, was gathering messages and cries-from-the-heart from Edgy-goers. Caroline is interested in “how we inhabit our bodies and the words we use to talk about the passages of time”. Throughout the evening, Caroline connected with the crowd by releasing the anonymous anecdotes via megaphone. It was a touching exploration of the intersection of personal and public spheres, private and shared experiences.

Back in the crowd, I asked Kathy Kennedy, a Montreal-based composer/arranger, sound artist and Maha Choir director, “Would you consider yourself an Edgy Woman?” She replied with a laugh, “I have more edges than I care to admit!”

Master MCs

The theatre doors opened (on time, thank you!!) and the full-house audience quickly found their seats. MCs Nathalie Claude and Dayna McLeod kicked things off with a religiously edgy ritual, some ridiculously funny karaoke, and amazing costumes. Their easy french and english banter made the evening accessible to both languages… and put us all in the mood for the great show to come!

“What inspired you to come of the Edgy Boum?”, I asked Topper, a member of the Dukes of Drag, Montreal’s drag king collective. “I was at Edgy last year and saw Coral Short’s performance installation… and I wanted to know what she was up to this year,” Topper noted.

Boum Boum Pow

The show was so fun! Each artist worked with their quote, sound effect, villain and prop with such imagination and playfulness! There was an incredible spontaneity to what happened that night… it was utterly charming, challenging and inspiring!

I loved the piece by T.L. Cowan… trying on styles and styles of panties to the audio of her running inner chatter. It was simple but brilliant. The comedic timing was perfect and the theme was so relate-able… the entire audience loved it!

Another stand-out performance was Leslie Baker’s tap-dance around mental illness. The audience gasped when she tar-and-feathered herself… then ate her young! A most memorable moment!

Sophie Castonguay put words in our mouths, literally, with an interactive performance. Line by line, she handed the script to random members in the crowd. The dialogue was spoken above a video using her assigned prop, blue shoes. The effect was engaging and haunting…

I also loved—well, I loved everything!!—but also loved the hip hop clowning of Cookie LaJar & The Flying Monkey. Their high-energy choreography was a high jinx of cute and sexy… and totally entertaining!

Jackie Gallant presented an emotionally charged musical vibration in sound and movement. Jackie communicated a beautiful depth of emotion, bringing an abrasive buzz to life, making a journey out of noise. A true art experience…

Rounding out the evening were performances by Suzanne Miller & Allan Paivio Productions, a large-scale dance work; and, Mariko Tamaki, engaging our imaginations in the execution of a Care Bear!

Fun and Prizes

Fun prizes by JoyToyz were the cherry on top of a great show!

After the performances, I ran into drag king Bo Stallion. “What did you get out the show tonight?”, I asked. Bo thought for a minute and replied with a grin, “It was like a mix of a childhood birthday party and speed dating.” Whatever THAT means! LOL

The Edgy Boum Party

A great tie-in: The interactive art by Coral Short and Lamatilde was a fantastic social experiment and conversation piece! The other interactive installations were wildly popular and kept the crowd engaged throughout the evening…!

This party totally worked. The crowd felt like friends who hadn’t met yet each other. Everybody stuck around and wanted to be there… and talked and introduced people to people. The performances, the crowd and the venue was a great recipe. There was a chemistry at the Edgy Boum, no doubt. Delicious!

DJ Noisy Nora (mwah!) kept the dance floor jumping and the incredible Edgy Festival staff ran the event smoothly into the wee hours…

A standing ovation to all the Edgy Boum performers… and major congratulations to another successful Edgy Women Festival event!

More Edgy to Come!!

I highly recommend you check out the Edgy programming still to come—Jess Dobkin on Wednesday + more, more, more!—and have your say by commenting on the Edgy Blogs at www.edgywomen.ca/blog/ !

~ Aaron for Edgy Women

You know the best fest has to be the Edgy Women Festival, a flare of feminist performance art presented by Studio 303, that lasts only a couple of weeks, but challenges and inspires you for-freaking-ever.

Starting the festival in full swing last night: Neon Nightz with The Scandelles (Toronto). Sasha Van Bon Bon, Kitty Neptune, and Countess Christsmasher, took the audience for a walk down memory lane, or a slide down the memory pole, revealing insights of the strip clubs of the 90s in Montreal.

Neon Nightz is a three-woman frottage, harnessing the electricity of the rub where fantasy, feminism, sexuality, art and athletics meet in the world of stripping. The play explores the “paradox of intimacy” through a series of funny, touching and damn sexy vignettes. Drawing on her experiences as a professional dancer, Sasha Van Bon Bon shares her wealth of insight and reveals an incredible compassion and humour for the clients and colleagues she encountered during her career… oh, and did I mention Kitty Neptune’s frequent and fucking-hot pole dances?!

The Paradox of Intimacy
“Creating the paradox of intimacy,” Sasha Van Bon Bon stated at the after-show artists’ talk, “are our emblems of womanhood and our inability to be more diverse in our sexuality.” Sasha started stripping in 1991 and stopped when lap dancing became legal. At that time, she noticed that “the social aspect of the club changed” as lap dancers and clients went off into private booths for dancing, instead of working at clients’ tables. Plus, she wasn’t keen on the undefined physical limits of those early lap dance years and the prospect of on-the-job asshole fingering!

“I like the intimacy of the lap dance,” Kitty Neptune shrugged, “but then I’m more of a slut than she is [gesturing at Sasha]!” The audience laughed…

Reverence and Ritual
What I found most inspiring about Neon Nightz was the eloquent intelligence of the script, rooted in feminist perspective. At the artist talk, Sasha was asked about the link between religion and strip clubs that is referenced throughout play.

“There is an atmosphere of reverence and ritual in the dance clubs that shows a parallel with the reverence and ritual of religion, for example towards the Virgin Mary. Also, there is a strong parallel in the single-facetted portrayal of womanhood, in both the Virgin Mary and the Stripper,” Sasha replied. The theme was wonderfully presented and challenged throughout the performance… Brilliant!

In the full-house audience at the Mainline Theatre, were an impressive count of fellas, a huge cross section of theatre lovers, local burlesque beauties, renowned queer writers, much-loved Montreal-based artists, a couple of drag kings, and a host of fabulous crowdsters. All were enthralled by the charisma and authentic talent of the performers in Neon Nightz, opening the Edgy Women Festival with a bang.

What a fantastic show! A toast to Sasha Van Bon Bon, Kitty Neptune, and Countess Christsmasher for a great night! Congratulation are also in order for the organizers of the 17th Edition of Edgy Women…

I highly recommend you check out the Edgy programming and read all the edgy blogs at www.edgywomen.ca/blog/

~ Aaron for Edgy Women